


give you my wild

by bimyfirst (divinerenjun)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (ies), Album: folklore (Taylor Swift), Angst, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Denial of Feelings, M/M, Markhyuck Summer Fight of 2017 (NCT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divinerenjun/pseuds/bimyfirst
Summary: Donghyuck loves it, craves the limelight, gets stuffy and angry when they aren’t busy preparing for a showcase or comeback. He needs the world’s eyes on him as often as he can get it.But what if,his mind taunts,the world is already in the palm of your hand.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 9
Kudos: 93





	give you my wild

**Author's Note:**

> inspired heavily by folklore, specifically peace because that song breaks my heart :( it's not long, i know, but i just had to get this all out. 
> 
> mwah <3

They don’t talk about it. 

Mark doesn’t _want_ to talk about it. He’s content (kind of) to just let _it_ be. Words complicate things. He doesn’t think he’s very good at them, anyway—never has. 

He watches Donghyuck twirl in his freshly-adorned pajamas, teeth brushed, meds downed, before he collapses into bed with a smile brighter than the stars glinting through Mark’s window. Like instinct, like it’s _easy,_ Mark pulls him close, tucks him to his chest under the blanket and chokes down the sudden urge to bite his own fingers off. 

“Do you wanna…” Donghyuck starts, Mark’s very ribcage rumbling against the vibrations of his vocal cords.

“Nah,” Mark responds, clearing his throat when it comes out as a whisper. “Just—just this.”

Donghyuck shifts in his grip, craning his neck back so he can cast a searching gaze all across Mark’s face, looking for something that Mark can’t provide. Mark forces himself to meet Donghyuck’s eyes, doing his damned hardest to convey an apology for his inadequacy, his inability to just _speak._

Donghyuck’s lips brush his collarbone as he lays his head back down. Mark squeezes his eyes shut.

They’ve grown up together. Mark held Donghyuck’s hand when he got nervous before their first live performance, held his hand when he got food poisoning for the first time and couldn’t go ten minutes without burying his head between the toilet seat rim, held his hand and sobbed with him when they were told about Jaemin’s hiatus, held his hand and cried tears of joy, fewer and fewer each time, after every one of their wins. His fingers know the geography of Donghyuck’s better than that of any of his own body parts. 

Mark reaches now to twine their hands together against the sheet, brushing Donghyuck’s sleeve up with a thumb to rub gentle circles into his wrist. Donghyuck’s sigh ghosts across Mark’s skin.

They’ve never talked about it and they probably never will. That would make it real.

The dam’s broken before—crumbled under the weight of their world. Mark’s not crazy, he knows it’s fragile, hastily constructed with little internal support.

He also knows that he can’t go through that again. That summer nearly broke him. Without Donghyuck to laugh with, to tease, to vent all his most microscopic frustrations to, he nearly went insane. They’re both petty—Donghyuck moreso, he admits to himself with a hint of a smile—and issues seemed to worm their way under the surface, spreading out in a viral pattern, hijacking the hotspots of their connection before it reared its ugly head and destroyed the secret town they’d constructed in the shadow of the wall holding back all the water. 

It’s taken them years to build everything back up from the ashes, a phoenix of their former love with plumage that shines even brighter in the light of its own fire. 

Mark doesn’t want that flame to ever go out again. He’s still holding out some kind of hope that this will work forever. 

Donghyuck’s breathing evens out, and Mark grips him tighter. This is why he still hopes. Nights like this, when they’re both craving something other than sex and are both too tired— _scared,_ his brain helpfully amends—to talk about why.

For Donghyuck, Mark would give up the very power of speech itself, so he can deal with this. They don’t have to talk about it. He has all he needs in this bed with him. Words can’t share body heat. Words don’t have eyelashes that tickle Mark’s stomach when they flutter in the throes of sleep. Words can’t give him anything he desires—can only give him the opposite, in fact. 

For Donghyuck, Mark would sacrifice closure. Yet as much as the word _love_ drifts through his mind, he’s ever-aware that he wouldn’t sacrifice this life. He doesn’t think anything in the world could entice him to give up the thrill of performing—though that line itself is drawn by Donghyuck, and he hovers on the other side, just out of reach, seeming poised at any minute to jump across. 

Mark grips Donghyuck tighter, makes a silent vow to always be his best friend, and wills himself to fall asleep.

ー ☾ ー

They would do anything for each other. 

Growing up together, that was the only logical choice.

Donghyuck knows this. He knows that he would burn himself to ashes if it meant Mark would never feel a single lick of flame. He knows that Mark would beat himself to death against the rocks that line Donghyuck’s jagged coastline for a single glimpse at what lies past the breakers. 

He also knows that, as many chances as fate tosses them, this doesn’t end in happiness.

Maybe one day they’ll _really_ grow up. Maybe one day they’ll move on. Lying here on Mark’s chest, feeling the stilted breaths that signal he’s just as awake as Donghyuck is, Donghyuck thinks it’s unlikely. He turns his head so his nose is pressed against Mark’s skin, and inhales deeply, never wanting that scent to leave his sinuses. 

Mark smells like laundry detergent and an ever-growing list of kept promises. Donghyuck mentally checks one off: _I will make you weak._ Mark’s never said this. Donghyuck knows that all Mark wants is for him to feel strong, but it makes him feel better, deep in some twisted part of his mind, to put dirty words in Mark’s mouth. It makes him feel better to imagine Mark fighting his fire with fire, instead of the gentleness he always has to offer in opposition to Donghyuck’s anger when it sprouts from his lips.

It would have been fun, he thinks, in some distant universe, some more simple timeline where their lives weren’t _this—_

No. That’s not what he wants. They’re performers. They will always be, have always been, can’t entertain the idea of _not_ being destined for the stage. He knew it from the first time he sang for his parents, four years old, dressed up in his sister’s pink coat, his father’s dark sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, spinning around the living room imagining blinding lights illuminating his figure, drawing the whole world’s attention. 

Donghyuck loves it, craves the limelight, gets stuffy and angry when they aren’t busy preparing for a showcase or comeback. He needs the world’s eyes on him as often as he can get it.

 _But what if,_ his mind taunts, _the world is already in the palm of your hand._

He squeezes his eyes shut, feels the tears brewing and holds them back with every scrap of will he possesses. His hand grips Mark’s waist tighter, pinning him to the bed and to Earth, so he can’t fly away, or go back to Heaven where he surely came from, because Donghyuck is _selfish_ and Mark isn’t so Donghyuck has to have him. He has to keep him close for as long as he can. He has to keep him on deck so someone will be there at the next setback, the next bout of food poisoning, the next nerve-wracking moment just before they spill out onstage in front of thousands. 

They will never be able to give each other everything, Donghyuck thinks, and maybe that’s for the best. He might not ever move on— _Mark_ might not ever move on, though Donghyuck hopes one day he will settle down and allow himself a smallest fraction of the love that he deserves—but this can be enough. They can make this enough. For now, for the next year, for the next forever, as long as he has the ability to ground Mark in this room against the pillows and blankets littering his bed, as long as Mark is there to hold his hand. 

His heart might not ever find peace, his words may always shoot to kill, but he has Mark right here, right now, and he can make that enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! 
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/divinerenjun) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/divinerenjun)


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